


Of Yoga and Werewolves

by Inmyownidiom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Paranormal, Angst, Austin Powers References, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Emotional Repression, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Face Sitting, Hux is a dog, I had way too much fun with this, Implied Rose/Finn/Poe triad, Mechanic Rey, Multi, Porn With Plot, Rey is thirsty AF, Smut and Fluff and Angst, Thus begins Fucktober, Werewolf Ben, and lives in a cabin, ben wears plaid, really long text chains, shamelessly pilfered buffy the vampire slayer quotes, silliness, sort of slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:39:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inmyownidiom/pseuds/Inmyownidiom
Summary: Rey isn't obsessed with Ben. Not at all. She just really enjoys staring at his ass as it moves beneath yoga pants. When she starts seeing him outside of the yoga studio, Rey slowly realizes that Ben has been keeping something from her: something dark, something awful, and something that doesn't have anything to do with yoga pants.Their relationship is about to seriously transform.





	1. Of Flashbacks, Foreshadowing, and Foiled Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AKnightOfWren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKnightOfWren/gifts).



> This has been my first foray into paranormal fan fiction, and it's weird and silly and got wildly out of control. It was based off of the prompts: 1) Werewolf Ben, and 2) Ben worrying about Rey accepting him for the monster he is, and for some reason the first thing that came to mind was that Ben and Rey would meet in a yoga class.  
> So, without further ado,  
> I hope you enjoy this, Wren!

Rey was staring at an ass.

It was a magnificent ass, all taut lines and smackable muscle. Unfortunately, she was staring at it through clothing. Even more unfortunately, she was staring at it in public.

Fall had settled cool and heavy in the air. The maples that lined the streets had exchanged their glimmering green foliage for fiery reds and breathtaking oranges, and they glowed under the grey sky like enormous torches. It was Rey’s favorite time of year--the time of crunching leaves, hot drinks, cozy scarves, and crisp winds that necessitated adorably tall boots--and she had spent the majority of the season either looking at this ass, or thinking about it.

“Take a breath,” the yoga instructor announced in her typical soothing monotone. “Deep, heavy breath. Let out all your tension. And relax into cobra.”

Rey tried to relax. Really.

In front of her, the ass shifted underneath a pair of loose pants and she found herself distracted by a set of wide shoulders and rippling triceps. They stretched the fabric of a tight, black t-shirt, and thick waves of shining onyx hair cascaded down past the shirt’s collar. He’d pulled it into a half-ponytail today. Out of his face, though still curling against his neck.

_Hnnggh._

Rey had been going to this studio for almost four months now. Finn had been the one to suggest it.

“You have such a stressful job, hon,” he’d said. “You gotta self-care a bit.”

Poe had nodded vigorously, lips pressed tightly together in concern.

After the first class, Rey had agreed with them.

It wasn’t that she disliked her job--she loved it, really--but it wasn’t great for her calm. A day of crouching in a scorching compartment, struggling to replace a leaky aileron actuator was difficult enough, but knowing that if said aileron actuator failed, she’d be responsible for the deaths of everyone on board the plane made it even more difficult. And after she’d been promoted to crew chief, she had to make sure that all of her mechanics weren’t fucking shit up. Because, again, _death._

It might be easier if she wasn’t working on airplanes. It might be safer if she wasn’t getting doused in chemicals at least once per week. It might be less frustrating to not be surrounded by grimy, out-of-shape, middle-aged men who squalled like a bunch of preschoolers whenever she caught a problem before they did.

Rey could be sitting in an ergonomic chair in a climate-controlled office, typing reports on a clean computer, tapping a manicured foot within a leather pump as she waited for a boss to announce a meeting.

But honestly, that sounded horrible.

She’d rather be crammed amidst broken parts and mechanisms, wiping grease on a questionably clean rag, rapping a wrench against a hull as she waited for one of her crew to hand her the correct bolt.

So, as a way to relax, she made Fridays into her yoga day. She’d picked the most relaxing-sounding class, and it hadn’t disappointed. From the calming hum of the instructor’s voice to the delightful warble of Enya, she struggled to stay awake from the moment the door closed.

That is, until she noticed _him._

He must have been in the class for a while; she hadn’t paid any attention to the others in the room, either having been too exhausted from her day, or too focused on figuring out why her downward-facing dog was giving her a leg cramp.

Then...that day.

She’d set up her mat at the back of the room, like she always did. It had taken a moment for her to realize that everyone in the room was with a partner, and after a frantic look at the flyers on the cork board, had seen the announcement that it was ‘couple’s day.’

 _Goddammit._ Before she could surreptitiously pack away her mat and scuttle from the room, a deep voice rumbled,

“Hey, um, I didn’t know about today either.”

She turned to the voice’s owner and felt her stomach seize. He was as tall as a tree and as wide as a semi. Black, wavy hair tumbled around his long face. Thick lips, dark eyes, sharp jaw, a large scar running from above his eyebrow to the collar of his snug shirt, and arms the size of dachshunds.

It was like a scene out of a movie, when the main character stood rapt as time slowed down. Sound faded. All the light went out except for the single bulb that illuminated him. A tiny star twinkled in the corner of his hesitant smile.

Although usually in those scenes, the main character wasn’t wearing sweatpants that had a faded ‘TOIGHT’ stamped across the ass, with her face sporting a smear of grease that traversed from her chin to her ear.

“You, uh, wanna…” He gestured between his own broad chest and Rey.

“Sure,” Rey said, hoping she didn’t sound out of breath.

They moved their mats together.

“I’m Ben.”

“Rey.”

He held out a hand to shake hers, and he dwarfed her--like, utterly and completely, like, holy _shit_ the man had enormous hands. Her throat became as parched as a desert in July, because all of that moisture pooling between her legs had to come from _somewhere._

Rey had never done couples yoga before. If she had been into yoga during any of her previous relationships, and if she would have suggested it, every one of those men would have snorted in derision and asked when she was going to get him his own purse.

Rey had dated a lot of assholes.

Three poses into couples yoga, it seemed like Ben was not an asshole. His breathing was slow and steady as her back pressed against his. When they sat facing one another, hands on each other’s knees, his gaze was relaxed and open. Rey found herself staring at his scar, and wondered what it was about scars that got her so revved up. He could have gotten it in a bar fight, or trying to rescue a kitten, or in a freak accident with a tuning fork, and she would still be licking her lips with the repressed desire to run her open mouth down the length of it. She wondered how far under his shirt it went.

Three seconds into Flying Warrior pose, she decided that she would ask him out for coffee. Later, she would come to the conclusion that it was because of the exact expression he had as he said, ‘Is this all right?’ with his massive hands encasing hers, and his bare feet pressing against her hips.

Rey’s face was probably reddened with the effort of holding herself still, yet Ben didn’t appear to be lifting anything heavier than a teaspoon, and he was concerned if the teaspoon was okay.

As they packed up their mats, she changed her mind about the coffee. If she was going to ask Yoga Ben out, she should probably be wearing pants that didn’t reference slapstick comedies from the early 2000s that had been gifted to her by her best friends in a silly attempt at inspiration after she’d spent half an hour complaining about how the kickboxing class made her ass feel like it was about to fall off.

“See you next week?” Ben said with a crooked smile.

Rey had saluted him with two fingers. “Roger, dodger.”

That night, she’d ordered two pairs of skin-tight yoga leggings. Both had pockets.

It had taken her three weeks to summon the courage to catch up to Ben on his way out.

“What are you doing right now?” she’d asked.

He ruffled a hand through those thick locks and Rey had to keep a tight hold on her wrist so she wouldn’t be tempted to do the same. “Heading home,” he said. “Gotta let my dog out.”

“Ah.”

Ben looked up at the disappointment in her voice. A little smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. “Why?”

She shrugged in an attempt at indifference. “I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a coffee.”

When he smiled at her, his cheeks creased in matching dimples, and Rey could have sworn that her heart actually fluttered. “I think he’ll understand,” Ben said.

They talked for over an hour without a single awkward silence. Their conversation traveled from siblings (he was an only child, and got along better with his mother; Rey had an older sister who still lived in London), to jobs (he was the director of operations at the local animal rescue [because _of course_ he was], and he expressed the perfect level of fascination as Rey described her own career), to beverage choice (Rey preferred spiced chai, while Ben sipped on an unsweetened chamomile), to scars.

Rey only had scrapes on her arms from finicky old fuselages. When she’d asked him about the scar on his face, he gave an odd pause, then said, “Wild dog.”

“Oof,” Rey huffed. “Must have been a big dog.”

Ben chuckled drily. “You could say that.”

“And you still want to work with them? Own one?”

His fingers drifted lazily around the rim of his mug. “You can’t be afraid of a bite.” Those dark eyes flicked up to her, and as his lips quirked in a tiny smile, Rey had a feeling he wasn’t only talking about a wild dog. A shiver raced up her spine.

Then the moment was gone. He gave a casual shrug and leaned back in his chair. “Also, dogs tend to get along well with me.”

“Except the one,” Rey said.

Ben’s tiny smile returned. “Except the one,” he agreed.

He’d asked for her number. She’d inputted his into her phone as ‘Ben,’ then after they’d said their goodbyes, had changed it to ‘Hot Yoga Ben.’

On her way to her car, Rey had tapped on her calendar app and quickly figured out when she could fit another yoga class into her schedule.

Mondays and Wednesdays were reserved for kickboxing, and Thursdays for lifting. She’d gone in to the yoga studio on the following Tuesday only to find Hot Yoga Ben laying out his mat.

She added Saturdays, and he was in that class as well.

The dude did a _lot_ of yoga.

It showed.

His side crow was a work of fucking _art._ Rey trembled like she was about to fly apart, but he held it without a single tremor.

They’d met outside of class more over the past months, and Rey had learned even more about Hot Yoga Ben.

His last name was Solo. He was surprisingly bad at mini golf. He owned a truck. His dog’s name was Hux. His ass looked even better in a pair of well-fitted jeans. He lived out in the woods because he liked to look up at the sky at night and pretend he was adrift in the infinite span of the universe. (He’d stammered a bit after that last one, and had given her a sheepish smile. ‘It sounds pretty dumb, saying it out loud,’ he’d said, but Rey had never heard anything more beautiful.)

She’d learned that there was a darker streak underneath that calm facade. It was difficult to see, and she’d caught a peek only once, when a cyclist ran a red light and clipped Rey as she and Ben were crossing the street. A harder hit than she’d expected, it had sent her spinning to the ground.

“I’m fine,” she’d gasped against the asphalt. A little scrape on her elbow and a bruise on her knee weren’t anything compared to her normal work injuries.

The change had been almost instant. For a second, she thought that she was in the middle of a war she hadn’t realized was going on. Ben had checked her over with frantic sweeps of his hands, then carried her to the sidewalk, bridal-style, like she weighed nothing. Like he was pulling her from the front lines.

He’d blasted a truly vile curse down the road at the back of the bike messenger, and after he set her on her feet, he stared after the cyclist, his fists clenching around emptiness as if he would have liked nothing more than to crush the bike in his bare hands. It had seemed like the air crackled around him. The calm slouch of his body was as rigid and taut as if he’d been crafted from iron, his shoulders heaving with every breath. When Rey finally got him to look at her, she wondered if she had actually hit her head on the asphalt. Because she knew that Ben had brown eyes. She’d stared into them enough over coffee and over small windmills on the mini golf course. They were a deep, rich brown, with tiny flecks of amber.

But in the dappled sunlight on the street corner, with her elbow aching and her vision spinning, she looked up at him and her eyes connected with irises as golden and sharp as a hawk’s.

Ben blinked rapidly, shook his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose with trembling fingers. When his hand came down, Rey decided that she must have imagined it all. No gold, just the same dark brown as her coffee. A sweet brown. A safe brown.

“I have to go,” Ben said, seeming like he wanted nothing more than to sprint as far from her as he could.

“Um, yeah,” Rey had said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll get an Uber home.”

She’d stared after him as he loped down the street, wondering what in the hell was going on.

Ben’s ass shifted in front of Rey, and it yanked her attention back to the current yoga class.

The last thing she’d learned about him in the three months they’d known each other was that apparently, he didn’t want to kiss her.

This realization annoyed her more than any of the others. It snuck underneath her skin and wriggled.

They had _almost_ kissed more times than she could count. She would say a little funny quip, or he would say something honest and soul-baring, and they would give each other a small, careful smile, and he would lean in...her breath would catch...their eyes would lock...and then it was as if someone had tossed a bucket of ice water over Ben’s head. He’d clear his throat and turn away, continuing with their conversation as if nothing at all had happened.

Rey had never been more confused.

He held doors open for her. If he had to pass by her, he would place the wide, warm span of his palm low on her back. She’d caught him staring at her lips. They’d gone to see live music at an underground, classy-as-fuck jazz club. A _jazz club._ If there was one fact of life that Rey had previously deemed indisputable, it was that you didn’t take someone to a swanky, dimly-lit, underground jazz club if you didn’t want to thoroughly bone them afterwards.

But there had been no boning.

No kissing, either. Ben’s gaze hadn’t strayed far from her tight skirt or her low-cut blouse the entire night. She’d run her fingers down the sleeve of his dark grey button-up and he’d given her a heated look that saturated the tiny scrap of lacy fabric posing as her underwear. If she leaned in close enough, he could see down the neck of her top. She’d purposely done so. Twice. Both times, Rey had surruptitiously glanced at the crotch of his pants, and had sworn she’d seen a twitch.

Afterwards, he’d dropped her off at her apartment with a smile and a ‘See you on Tuesday,’ then had driven off, leaving her alone with her lacy fabric and her fingers and her memories.

Rey sent a glare at Ben’s ass yet again.

And the cherry on top of the utterly sexless cake was that after everything, he was still setting up his yoga mat in front of her.

Every time.

Rey shifted into Warrior I and wrinkled her nose. Was it some sort of shitty machismo thing? No, she knew him well enough that _that_ wasn’t a possibility. Was he uncomfortable looking at her? Did he not even _want_ to look at her?

Over the past few months, she’d bought more yoga clothes under the guise of needing variety from the two pairs of leggings and her assortment of loose t-shirts with grease stains and airport logos. The clothes she’d bought were the kind with the cut-out backs that showed off the bright, strappy sports bras she wore underneath. They were cute. Even Poe had said so.

Still, Ben set up his mat in front of her.

Once, she’d put her mat at the front of the studio, right by the mirror, just to see what he would do. She’d barely managed to hide her disappointment when he’d gone to the front as well...on the opposite side of the studio.

For an hour, she found ways to convince herself that he’d found an actual girlfriend: probably someone tall and leggy and boasting a set of enormous tits.

Yet at the end of the session, he’d packed his mat and come up to her with a wave and a smile. It was then that he’d suggested the jazz club.

In a nutshell, Rey was confused as _fuck._

As Enya’s warble faded into silence, the yoga instructor bowed and wished them all a good day.

At least it was Friday. Two full, lovely days off, in which to sleep late, pine hard, and try out the new vibrator she’d ordered, after a glowing recommendation from Rose.

“You have plans this weekend?” Ben asked, holding the studio door open as she passed through.

 _Being confused as FUCK. Pummeling my pussy while I think of your stupid, handsome face. Questioning my sanity. Complaining about all of this to my three best friends._ She didn’t say any of that, though.

“Oh, the usual,” Rey answered. “You?”

Ben lifted a massive shoulder in a shrug. “Same.”

A chill breeze swept across the parking lot and rustled piles of dead leaves. Heavy clouds squatted ominously across the sky and nudged against the roofs of the highest buildings.

Rey blinked. Ben was walking her to her car. She tried not get too excited.

“Actually, I was thinking…” His fingers ruffled that mane of delicious waves. “Lingonberry Aftershock is playing at the Med tomorrow. At five, I think. You want to go? I haven’t seen them, so I’m not sure if they’ll be any good, but--”

“Yes.” She interrupted him before he could continue. Another date at the swanky jazz club? Or...well, a kind-of sort-of date? The very idea sent a tremor of giddiness through her limbs. He’d be in another button-up, and she had a few more skirts she could pull out of the closet.

Ben relaxed, as if he’d been worried that she would say no. “Maybe I can, uh, pick you up after yoga tomorrow?”

Rey fought a smile. “Yoga ends at one.”

He shoved his hands into the large pockets in his loose pants. Rey was certain that the action would stretch the fabric snug against his ass. That magnificent, muscled ass.

Ben seemed oblivious. “Maybe we’ll grab lunch, too. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

He was suggesting spending most of a day together. A solid six to eight hours. It felt like her stomach was filled with a gallon of excited, horned-up butterflies. Right as she was thinking about what a ridiculous description that was, she realized that Ben was staring at her lips.

Know what? Fuck it. She didn’t know what was going on in his brain, but she knew that you didn’t stare at the lips of someone that you never wanted to kiss.

Rey leaned forward onto her toes, her fingers twining in the drawstrings at the collar of Ben’s sweatshirt. Her lips parted, and so did his. One of his hands drifted to her waist. And oh, thank _fuck,_ he was bending down towards her.

It was happening. Finally, _finally_ , it was happening. Rey almost wanted to cry with relief.

A klaxon--similar to the kind that would go off during a reactor meltdown--blasted from the pocket of Rey’s yoga pants and she jumped as if her phone had shot out a needle and pricked her.

_No, no, no._

She’d purposely selected the blaring ringtone so that she would stop whatever she was doing and pay attention to the incoming call.

Now she actually wanted to cry.

“Sorry,” she muttered as she yanked the offending device from her pants, feeling like the butterflies in her stomach had dissolved into piles of ash. “It’s work. I have to get this.”

Ben nodded slowly. A disquieted expression had fallen across his face and he settled an unfocused gaze on the car next to Rey’s.

Damn work. Damn whatever issue her crew had encountered.

A tinny voice squawked out of the speaker so loudly that Rey had to hold the phone far from her ear.

“What do you mean, the antiskid system didn’t test?” she hissed into the microphone. “Did you try--” The voice cut her off with more squawking. “Fine, _fine,_ I’ll be there in twenty.” She stabbed the ‘end call’ icon with a vicious finger.

“Hey, I…” Rey’s sentence trailed off when she saw that Ben had backed several paces away from her and was rubbing his forehead.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I should head home.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yep.” He flashed her a tense smile, then climbed into his truck.

Rey huffed a breath against her palm and sniffed. Nope, that was fine. She unlocked her car and slid into the seat, and wondered how much longer all of this would last.

The next day, she packed a duffel with toiletries and an extra slinky outfit, and walked into the yoga studio with her head held high.

Ben wasn’t there.

Every time the door swung open, she’d twist around, then return to her pose with a little more disappointment.

So he was going to stand her up.

She shifted into Warrior II and glared at the mirrors at the front of the studio. It wasn’t a big deal. It was fine. It wasn’t like she was looking forward to today. Not at all. She had so many more wonderful things in her life that she wouldn’t let one brush-off get the better of her weekend.

By the end of the hour, she hadn’t done a very good job at convincing herself.

The sky had cleared to a brilliant blue and it glimmered off of her windshield. Where yesterday’s breeze had held a hint of snow, today was all sunshine, puffy clouds, and fiery leaves.

When she pulled out her phone to update Finn, Poe, and Rose on the let-down of the morning, she brightened at the notifications: three texts and a missed call from Hot Yoga Ben.

_"Shit, Rey, I am so, so sorry."_

_"My damned truck can’t get out of the driveway. No idea what’s wrong."_

_"I’m not standing you up, I promise. Really. I want nothing more than to listen to trumpets and watch you drink martinis. I’ll make it up to you. As soon as I get a tow. Or an alternate method of transportation. Like a horse. Or a dune buggy. Roller skates."_

He’d called, but hadn’t left a voicemail, so she called him back.

Somehow, Ben’s voice sounded deeper over the phone. Before she could say a word, he was apologizing again.

“I’m sorry. If I’d have known that it was going to crap out on me like this--”

“It’s fine, Ben,” she said around a laugh.

A long sigh hummed out of her phone’s speaker, and a thought occurred to Rey.

“You want me to come by and take a look at it?”

He paused. “I couldn’t. I don’t want to impose on your day off. And after you had to stay late yesterday.”

“Tell you what. You make me dinner, and if I can’t fix your truck, I owe you a pair of roller skates.”

“All right, deal.” She could tell that he was smiling.

She punched his address into her phone, then pulled up the group chat between Finn, Rose, and Poe.

 

 **Rey** : So our ‘date’ is cancelled.

 **Finn** : WHAT NO

 **Rey** : Yeah. His truck crapped out, but I’m going to see what I can do to fix it.

 **Finn** : Wait WAIT you’re going to his HOUSE

 **Rey** : Yes?

 **Finn** : Where’s he live?

 **Rey** : In the mountains, like an hour outside of town.

 **Finn** : You know there’s wolves out there.

 **Rey** : Oh please. Don’t try and scare me out of this.

 **Finn** : I’m serious! There have been reports of chickens getting killed, and one time, a goat.

 **Rose** : I’m gonna back Finn up on this one.

 **Rey** : …

 **Finn** : Think of the goat, Rey

 **Rose** : There’s a few killings by wild animals every month. No one keeps their pets outside at night anymore up there.

 **Poe** : Ahwwoooo!

 

Rey rolled her eyes at the wolf emoji that followed Poe’s ‘howl.’

 

 **Rey** : If I see a wolf, I’ll run. Promise.

 **Rose** : Thank you.

 **Poe** : Remember, you don’t have to be faster than the wolf. You just have to be faster than your friend.

 **Rey** : UGH. I’m going now. Bye.

 **Finn** : From all of us, be safe, please.

 **Rose** : By safe, I mean ‘not murdered.’

 **Poe** : By safe, I mean ‘not riddled with STDs’

 **Rey** : For fuck’s sake, Poe

 **Poe** : We were all thinking it.

 **Rose** : *You* were thinking it.

 **Rey** : Wait...aren’t you guys all home right now?

 **Poe** : We text so we don’t have to talk to each other

 **Poe** : It’s what keeps our relationship strong

 **Rose** : Getting to use the ball gag on Poe keeps our relationship strong

 **Rey** : COME ON. TMI, you guys.

 **Poe** : Oh, someone’s getting comed on

 **Finn** : For the love of shit, Poe.

 **Finn** : Also you spelled ‘cummed’ wrong.

 **Poe** : It was on purpose. For the joke.

 **Rey** : OKAY BYE.

 **Rose** : Don’t die!

 **Poe** : I wish you good boning!

 **Finn** : Please text me tomorrow. No matter what happens. Even if nothing happens.

 **Rey** : Rodger, dodger.

 **Poe** : Tell me you haven’t said that to him

 **Rose** : Don’t worry Rey, I’m getting the gag now

 **Poe** : You can gag my mouth, but you will never gag MY FINGERS

 

The texts cut out after that, implying that Rose had indeed found a way to gag Poe’s fingers.


	2. Of Mechanics, Making Out, and Metamorphosis

“Try it now.”

The engine clicked a few times, then fell silent. Rey grumbled a foul curse and wiped her grease-covered hands on her pants, glad that she’d decided to stop at her apartment and change. She had deliberated on the contents of her closet for several minutes. Cute clothes that emphasized her attributes would make it more likely that he’d want to take said cute clothes off of her, but cute clothes would also attract grease and grime. She would be elbows-deep in an engine, and didn’t fancy the idea of wiping her palms off on her favorite ass-hugging pair of jeans.

She had eventually settled on an pair of faded Carhartts (with double fronts, because Rey didn’t fuck around with Carhartts) and an old hoodie. Underneath that, however, she was all skimpy scraps of black lace and barely-there bra cups.

It was a great compromise.

The sun had drifted low and was skimming the tips of the trees, and still, whatever was happening with the truck remained a mystery. Tendrils of fog crept out of the surrounding forest and hovered along the ground like exhausted ghosts.

Rey sent a longing glance over her shoulder to Ben’s cabin. Smoke tumbled out of the chimney and warm light radiated from the windows. As the day had grown later, the air had grown chill and crisp.

Hours ago (damn, was it really _hours_ at this point?) she had pulled into the dirt driveway to see Ben standing in front of a charming cabin that seemed right out of an advertisement for paper towels. Garbed in a red and black plaid flannel, he’d lifted a hand in a small wave as she approached.

It was ridiculous, Rey had thought to herself as she clambered out of her car. Absolutely ridiculous. He was a fucking Brawny model. Wide shoulders that stretched the flannel nearly to obscenity. Black hair framing his long face and barely brushing his collar. The long line of his scar twisting down into his shirt. The quirk of his lips. The _dimples._ She was so screwed.

“Should I try again?”

Ben’s voice from the truck cab brought her back to the frustratingly awful situation underneath the hood.

“Nah, I think--wait--oh!” A thought came to her and she dropped to her knees, rolled to her back, and shimmied underneath the truck.

She was at his _house._ Working on his _truck._ Rey would freely admit to having fantasized about this exact situation an ungodly number of times. Usually the dialogue would seem straight out of a terrible porno.

_“Just a little...ah. I think that’s done it.” She’d straighten and slam the hood. Ben wouldn’t be able to stop staring at her tits, plumped out of a low-cut button-up she’d tied high around her midriff. For some reason, she would also be wearing short jean cut-offs. The button-up would be checkered. (Rey didn’t ever make the claim of having sensical sexual fantasies.)_

_“Anything else I can do for you, Ben?” Her voice would be low and sultry, and her smile would lure him right on in._

_“Well,” he would say. “There is one thing.” His arms would press her body flush against his so she could feel the entire length of his erection._

_“Oh!” Rey would say in mock alarm, wriggling her hand down the front of his jeans. “Maybe you need me to take care of_ your _fluids, too.”_

Under the truck, Rey wrinkled her nose. Terrible dialogue, indeed.

She pursed her lips and took a slow breath. Head pillowed on a tuft of grass, she stared at the beautiful tangle of the undercarriage. Most people wouldn’t feel peaceful in a position like this, but Rey did. She inhaled the smells of oil and gas and old metal as if they were incense. She’d been a jumble of nerves and sexual frustration since she’d pulled in, but now, she was just a girl, lying in the dirt, looking at a truck. A new sense of calm washed over her.

There... _there._ Why hadn’t she seen it earlier? After a few twists and clangs, she shouted, “Try it now!”

The truck roared to life, spitting out a few globs of oil onto her sweatshirt.

Thank the heavens.

Rey didn’t know a thing about roller skates.

She scrambled out from underneath the truck after Ben cut the engine. He came over to her as she made a pathetic attempt to transfer some of the grease from her hands to the rag he’d provided.

“Do I owe you anything?” he said. “I can pay you--”

“Pay me in food,” Rey said with a smile. _And sex._ _Make me the opposite of a prostitute. Will work for boning._

Ben shook his head in wonder. “Are you sure? A mechanic would have charged at least--”

“Ben,” she interrupted again, and scowled at the almost pained expression on his face. “If you offer me money one more time, I’ll take the damned truck apart.”

It was a complete and utter bluff. She loved his truck.

The vehicle was a boxy, rattling thing from the late 90’s. It didn’t bellow like a bull--it grumbled like an old, ornery horse. Absolutely nothing was automatic, and the side panels had faded stains from where a previous owner had plastered vinyl flames. From the second she’d seen it, Rey’s fingers had itched to see what was under the hood.

Ben lifted both palms in surrender.

“I appreciate it. Very sincerely.” Then he frowned, and reached for her neck, and Rey felt her heart pound as his large thumb traced the top curve of her collarbone.

“You got some oil,” he said, and his voice was that of someone in a trance. The touch started as a quick, thoughtless action, but as his thumb pushed at the collar of her hoodie, he slowed as if memorizing every inch of skin--as if he didn’t trust his vision, and wanted to make sure she was real.

The air no longer felt chill. Flames licked at the insides of Rey’s thighs and seared a trail from her neck to her chest.

Ben’s coffee-colored eyes were hooded. He licked his lips and stared hungrily at her mouth, and she _wasn’t_ imagining it, because she’d seen looks like that before, and now he was leaning down again and...could this be it?

Ben sucked in a quick breath, then straightened with a minute shake of his head.

“Want something to eat?” he said.

 _Yes!_ Rey screamed internally. _You, Godammit!_

Nearly twitching with frustration, she followed Ben inside.

It was a quaint home, from the rustic wooden walls, to the utilitarian kitchen, to the small, plush carpet by the fireplace. The couch held three plaid, fleece blankets, all folded neatly and piled on one end.

She made the decision then to confront him about...whatever this was. A girl could only take so many mixed signals. It was going to happen. She’d sit him down and make him talk.

Ben did something in the kitchen that made a delicious smell of spiced meat waft though the air, and her stomach let out an angry growl.

Fine. She’d sit him down and make him talk _after_ dinner.

Rey jumped when a large, black figure slunk out of a back room.

At her squawk of alarm, Ben ducked his head worriedly out of the kitchen. “What?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know you were keeping a fucking _bear_ in your house!”

Because the dog she was looking at was enormous. Utterly enormous. Its back came up to Rey’s waist, and its paws were nearly as large as her palms.

“Oh,” Ben said. He waved the spatula in his hand at the animal in question. “That’s Hux.”

 _“This_ is Hux?”

The black dog plodded over to her with all the grace of a moose. He was lean and leggy, with shaggy fur the color of soot. Mournful eyes stared out from underneath a set of bushy, black brows. The long hairs at the end of his ears bore a striking resemblance to a set of tassels, and a wiry beard hung down from his chin.

Rey was used to dogs that would bound over and slurp at any exposed skin like whirlwinds made of fur, tongues, and saliva. Hux simply nudged her hand with his long, wet nose until she scratched behind one floppy ear, and when he leaned against her, she had to steady herself against the wall so she wouldn’t topple over. He seemed like the kind of dog that would fetch a ball only because he thought you had been really mad at the ball and he wanted to bring it back so you and the ball would be friends again.

“I got him at the shelter, oh, six years ago, I think?” Ben said from the kitchen.

Rey ‘oofed’ as her shoulder collided with the wall, the full force of Hux’s lean overpowering her. “What, did they run out of wolves?”

There was a startled, choked laugh, and a clatter of a utensil falling to the wooden floor before Ben replied.

“He’s a lot of things, but the vet thinks he’s mostly wolfhound. Maybe some Great Dane, too.

Rey staggered and continued scratching behind Hux’s tasseled ear. “Part horse, I’d bet,” she said.

The dog tired of her after a moment. He padded to the door, slumped to the floor with a heavy sigh, and lay his head on his paws. His eyes followed Rey to the bathroom, and when she returned with (mostly) grease-free hands, he hadn’t moved.

Rey peeked into the kitchen, and watched as Ben pulled a loaf of bread from the oven. Not out of a bread maker, or out of a grocery bag. He’d fucking _made a loaf of bread for her._ And then didn’t even want to kiss her.

Frustration swelled within Rey. Dinner could wait.

“Ben?”

“Yeah?”

He turned around, an oven mitt in one hand and a spatula in the other. Rey made a quick note to mentally preserve the image for future use. It wasn’t every day that she got to see a man with the proportions of Paul Bunyan decked out in plaid, his bright blue oven mitt wrapped around a fresh loaf of sourdough.

_Focus._

She put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on here?”

Ben blinked at her, and looked at the oven. “Um,” he said. “Bread. And pasta. And meatballs. If that sounds--”

“No...no,” Rey said, pinching the bridge of her nose. She pointed to the couch. “Sit.”

He frowned, but set down the bread and the mitt and went to the couch. He was still holding the spatula. Rey went to stand in front of him, and re-crossed her arms.

“Do you like me?” she said, without preamble.

A faint flush crept up Ben’s neck and his jaw worked behind his closed mouth. “Y-yes, of course.”

Relief flooded through Rey, followed swiftly by frustration.

“Then why…” She flung her arms out in defeat. “Why don’t you _do_ anything about it?”

Confliction showed on his face, as well as a little bit of fear.

Oh. Oh holy _shit._

“You have a secret.”

Ben’s mouth opened around silent words.

Dammit. _Dammit._ Rey hated when she was right. It felt like an angry hand closed around her middle and squeezed. She didn’t want to be right. Not this time.

“You’re hiding something awful from me,” Rey said. “Something big.”

Ben was normally a pale man, but now he grew even paler.

“You’re married.” Her voice wavered. God, all of her pining and fantasizing, and it would dissolve in an instant.

Ben jerked backwards. “What? No, of course not.”

“A girlfriend, then.”

“No.”

A little spark of hope flared, and Rey tried not to get too excited.

“Then what is it?” she said tightly. “Are you a spy? Are you Amish? Have you time traveled from a hundred years ago?”

He shook his head at each question.

“Do you have a child that you don’t know about?”

Ben tipped his head in confusion. “How would I…” He gave up on figuring out Rey’s lapse in logic and shook his head once more. “No, nothing like that.”

“Then…” Rey pursed her lips and blew out a breath. “Then what’s the problem, Ben?” She approached him slowly, like he was a jumpy stray she was worried about startling. “I like you. You like me. Usually, when that’s the case, people do…” She struggled with her words, not wanting to outright say what she desperately wanted to say, and concluded lamely with “More.”

She’d reached the edge of the couch and her knees nudged against his knees. He opened his legs wider so that she could stand between them.

“And you want more to happen?” he said. Fuck, the way he was looking at her made Rey’s head spin: a stare made entirely of lust, and hope, and anxiety.

She cocked a brow. “What do you think?”

His nostrils flared and his grip on the spatula tightened.

“We have something here,” Rey said, gesturing between the two of them. “Something good. Help me figure it out.”

He lifted a hand cautiously to her waist and swallowed. The flush reached his ears. Rey’s skin felt far too warm for how chilly the cabin had become in the absence of sunlight. All this time she had been waiting for Ben to make a move, to demonstrate his need for something physical. Yet...maybe she had to be the one to reach out first.

The couch creaked underneath her knees as she straddled Ben’s hips and placed her palms on his wide, firm shoulders. Underneath his flannel, he was as warm and hard as sun-baked marble. She could feel the heat of his groin through the thick, baggy fabric of her Carhartts and a gasping moan escaped from her before she could even think about holding it back.

Ben’s breathing came fast and heavy. His large hand drifted up her back, fingertips light as feathers, but it was as if he was holding himself in check, like he was straining against some invisible cord. His breath shuddered, and his eyes flicked up to connect with hers, and then, the cord snapped. He flung the spatula across the room, cupped the back of her neck, and pulled her mouth down to his.

Whenever they had been together, Ben had always been calm. Patient. Rational. This kiss was none of those things. He ravished her mouth with an intensity that bordered on fury, sweeping his tongue across hers, groaning low and primal against her lips. Without a word, he flipped Rey so she lay lengthwise on the couch, her head pillowed on the pile of blankets. He felt like sin as he moved between her legs, the hard bulge in his jeans grinding against her cunt. With every thrust, stars exploded behind her eyes.

“I don’t fucking understand you, Ben,” Rey gasped when he broke from her lips to press open-mouthed kisses to the column of her neck.  

He paused, frowning down at her through the black mane of his hair.

“What do you mean?”

“You kiss me like _this,_ but you’ve never done anything. You’ve never even put your mat next to mine.” Hell, that sounded so stupid when she said it out loud. Rey opened her mouth to tell him never mind, and that he should just forget it, but he huffed out a soft laugh and dragged his palm across the curve of her hip.

“Know why I’m always in front of you?”

Rey shook her head, then gasped as Ben’s large hand squeezed her upper thigh.

“Because if I was able to watch you move, in your extra clingy clothes, and if I could see those beautiful slivers of your skin, I’d be at half mast for the entire class.”

“Oh,” Rey said, heat unfurling between her legs.

“And that would be uncomfortable for everyone.”

“Mrrhh,” Rey said as she snaked her fingers through the black waves of Ben’s hair and tugged him down to her waiting mouth.

She was drowning in the feel of his hard body pressing her into the cushions, becoming lost in the smell of him--an earthy scent of dirt, and pine, and something...darker, richer, like bitter chocolate. His groans vibrated against her chest and each one was another ember that nestled low in her belly.

Dextrous fingers dipped underneath her hoodie and slid upwards to palm at her lace-covered breast. His ensuing growl was one of utter predatory satisfaction. She keened and arched against him, pleasure prickling as sharp as a thorn when he rolled her nipple underneath his blunt fingertips.

Rey’s hands scrabbled at the buttons on his shirt. One may have ripped. As soon as her fingers splayed across the solid muscle of his chest, she completely forgot about whatever damage she had done. Hell, the man was built like a lumberjack. Like an insanely ripped lumberjack who was lavishing her breasts with more attention than they’d ever received.

Ben dragged his tongue along her neck and Rey gasped, then cried out when he nipped the sensitive skin underneath her ear.

Where had all of this been months ago? If someone had told Rey that the same man who had sipped chamomile as they talked about stars and had blushed when he’d been caught looking down her shirt at a swanky jazz club was now kissing her with a ferocity that would put a blush on a romance novelist, Rey would have promptly laughed in that person’s face.

One arm at a time, she shoved off his shirt and when he was bared to her, she let her hands swarm over every plane of his abdomen. Before she could feel truly sated with his ridiculous torso, he slipped her hoodie over her head, then let out a choked grunt at the sight of her scantily-clad breasts. He stared, open-mouthed, for long just long enough to thoroughly convince Rey that she had made the correct undergarment choice. His head dove to her chest and his lips grazed over the exposed swell of one breast.

“Not that I’m expecting anything,” Rey blurted against the explosion of sensations, “but so you know, I’m on the pill.”

Ben’s eyes flicked up to hers and he lifted his eyebrows. His lips lingered on her skin and the very sight of that wicked mouth so close to her nipple made her toes tingle.

“And I’m, um...my last check-up was a-ok.” She made the ‘ok’ sign with a hand, then inwardly cursed. Could she have been more blunt? More awkward?

A crooked smile crept across Ben’s kiss-reddened lips. “Me too. Although after you’ve mentioned that, I might be expecting something.”

“Oh, thank _fuck,”_ Rey breathed and pushed his head down to her breast. He groaned against her lace-covered skin and his tongue flicked against her nipple through the gauzy fabric. The way he was using his mouth immediately brought to mind the ways he could use his mouth in other places. Her clit throbbed in jealousy.

Rey hadn’t ever had an orgasm from a man’s mouth on her breast before, and she’d never had someone pay so much attention to her _covered_ breast, but if he kept going like this…

Well, there was a first time for everything.

A low whuff made Rey start. She turned to see Hux sitting on his haunches less than an arm’s-length away, staring at Ben with a strange concentration.

Ben growled and gently pushed the dog away. “Hux, get out.” He returned his attentions to Rey’s other breast, fingers rubbing the damp patch of fabric and making her nipple pucker with chill. She twined her fingers in his hair, clutching him closer. His mouth hardened against her and his teeth closed on her skin.

 _“Ben…”_ His name spilled from her lips in a whimper as her hips canted up to meet his.

Another whuff. Rey opened her eyes in time to see Hux’s long nose butt Ben in the ribcage.

Ben pushed the dog away once more. _“Out,_ you voyeuristic son of a bitch,” he growled. But this growl was different. It wasn’t a low rumble, a gravelly exclamation of displeasure, but an actual _growl_ coming from the bottom of his chest.

He hovered above Rey’s mouth and it was then that she noticed his eyes had turned golden. It wasn’t her imagination, or the result of tumbling to asphalt. And...had his eyeteeth always been that sharp?

When his lips descended on hers, it was rougher than before. His hand closed on her waist and pinned her as he ground against her in harsh jerks.

And, _fuck,_ if she didn’t love it.

Hux barked, loud enough to make Rey flinch.

Rising up onto his knees, Ben stabbed his fingers through his hair and curled his lip at the dog.

Rey blinked. His teeth were definitely sharper.

“What in the _hell_ is your…” Ben trailed off, his arms falling to his sides as a look of unease grew on his face.

Suddenly, he gave a pained shout and doubled over, as if he had been punched in the stomach.

“Ben!” Rey reached for him, but he threw himself out of her grasp and tumbled onto the floor. “Are you okay? What’s happening?”

Wild eyes met hers in a panicked stare. Ben’s attention snapped to the window and he let out a shout of alarm. It had gotten dark, and the full moon peeked out from behind the tall pines, bright as a spotlight.

What the hell was going on? Rey blinked at the moon. Was that a condition? Lunarphobia? Moonaphobia? Finn would know. He’d taken Latin.

Rey had the beginnings of ‘It’s okay, it’s just a big ball of rock’ on the end of her tongue when Ben began to mutter.

“No, oh no. No. _NO.”_ He doubled over with another pained cry. When she ran to him, he scrambled away from her.

“You need to leave.” It wasn’t an order; he was begging. “Please. Go. Now.”

Was he sick? What had _happened?_

“Ben,” Rey began, entirely ready to calm or convince or sooth. “You just--”

In an instant, the pleading dropped from his expression. “GO!” His voice was a roar, violent and loud as a crack of thunder. Honed by years of learning that those kinds of instructions usually preceded an explosion, an evacuation, or a gas leak, Rey hardly noticed that she’d shoved her body into her sweatshirt until her hand closed on the doorknob and she wrenched it open.

The cold air was like a slap to the face and she stopped. Looked back. Ben was trembling, sweating, letting out screams of pain, curled over as if his body was collapsing into itself.

No. She couldn’t leave him like this.

Rey sank to the floor beside him, and placed her hands on his back. His skin was as hot as a furnace; she almost expected her palms to sizzle.

His head jerked up at the touch. She’d expected relief to pass across his face, or a look of thanks. She hadn’t expected his fear.

She hadn’t expected her _own_ fear.

Ben’s teeth were longer and sharper. The pointed and furred tips of his ears stuck out from the black mass of his hair. Golden eyes, wide and terrified, pinned her in place even though every cell in her body was telling her to _run._

Ben doubled over once more and Rey heard a crunching, like the sound bare hands ripping apart a chicken carcass. Bones rippled and shifted underneath his skin and black bristles erupted along his spine.

His head snapped up and he pushed her, hard, and Rey noticed with a stab of horror that his fingers had sprouted thick, black claws at the tips.

He dragged himself behind the couch and Rey sat frozen as his yells and cries turned into guttural howls, then shifted to the plaintive whine of a canid, and then a low, rumbling growl. And then silence.

Rey didn’t know if she was still breathing, if she still had lungs; she felt as if her chest was being crushed by an 747. Oh, actually, yes, her lungs were still there. They cramped as she sucked in a ragged breath. Her pulse blasted in a frantic staccato as her blood roared in her ears.

The _fuck_ was _that?_

The breath she’d sucked in emerged as a tremulous, pathetic-sounding squeak.

From behind the couch, she heard the sound of nails clacking on the wooden floor. Slow, deliberate.

Her heart stuttering like a dying engine, she shuffled backwards as the wolf emerged. Thick, black fur covered its body, and rippled in waves with every step. The room seemed to shrink.

Rey had seen wolves before. They lounged in dirt patches at the zoo behind the safety of walls and moats, and they hunted moose on Planet Earth behind the safety of her television. Sharp, gleaming teeth, shaggy coats, blazing eyes. To put it mildly, Rey had been intimidated.

This wolf put all of the ones she’d seen before to shame. If those were manifestations of the savagery of nature, the black wolf in front of her now was the manifestation of death. It was larger than any wolf she’d seen--even larger than Hux--and it radiated strength and menace.

Golden eyes locked onto her, the long pink tongue lolled, and it was then she realized that it was looking at her the way a wolf looked at a baby deer.

Fuck, oh fucking fuck, she was its _prey._

It sniffed the air and curled its lip in a snarl. Rey’s boots slid across the wooden floor as she tried to back up farther, but the wall pressed angrily into her spine.

The wolf snapped at the air and lifted one huge paw in her direction, then writhed as if it was struggling with some internal demon. For a split second, its eyes flickered to a dark brown and it cowered away from her. Its head snapped from side to side as it writhed again, and it tipped its head in a long, wailing howl that sent an icy spear right through Rey’s heart: a howl of rage, frustration, and hatred. The wolf shook as if ridding itself of a pest. When it returned its hungry gaze to her, its eyes were as sharp and golden as a hawk’s.

Rey’s stomach dropped into the floor.

Words and snippets of phrases burst in her mind: _Ben. Wolf. Ben turned into a wolf. Ben is a wolf. Teeth. Big. Death. Fuck. Going to die. Only kissed once. FUCK._

It was coming towards her, teeth snapping, spittle flying from its jaws, and she couldn’t move. None of her limbs listened to her desperate commands, even though she knew that if she stayed frozen, her night would end with a set of sharp teeth around her windpipe. It tensed to jump. Rey screamed.

And then, Hux was between them, hackles raised, his growl hovering in the air.

The wolf took a step backwards, startled out of its focus. Its nose worked in a series of deep sniffs, and it looked between the wolfhound and Rey. She swore she saw that flash of brown again, only for a second, before the wolf let out a high whine and bolted through the open door and into the night.

Finally, Rey’s legs worked. She lurched to her feet and lunged for the door, slamming it and fumbling with the deadbolt until it snapped into place.

Sweet and salted shitsnacks, had that actually happened?

“Ohmigodohmigodohmigod.” Her words burbled into the cabin’s silence.

She tried to think rationally, event though it felt as if her stomach was trying to burst out of her chest.

Get to her car. No, she couldn’t do that, because then she would have to go outside. The wolf was outside. _Ben_ was outside.

Call the cops. Call animal control.

They wouldn’t believe her.

Call that hotline she’d once seen on the Discovery Channel.

Wait, no, that was the History Channel. And it was about ancient aliens.

_Shit._

Nails clacked on the hardwood floor and Rey spun around with a shrill cry. Hux blinked up at her, seemingly disturbed by her noise. He ambled to the door and flopped down in front of it with a long-suffering sigh.

The dog didn’t seem worried. Maybe she shouldn’t be.

No, no, no, the guy she’d been crushing on for the past three months turned into a _wolf._ She should worry. She should be freaking the hell out, full-on panicking, peeing her pants and dissolving into a puddle of urine and fear tears. She should be running, since she’d literally promised to Finn that she would run in case of wolf.

Instead, Rey sank into the couch, pulled out her phone, and opened a text to Finn. Not to the group chat. Not this time.

 

 **Rey:** Random question.

 **Rey:** What would you do if the hot guy you were hotly making out with turned into a wolf when he saw the full moon?

 **Finn** : Umm

 **Rey** : Asking for a friend.

 **Finn** : You friend was making out with a werewolf, obvs. Is your friend watching one of those Twilight movies while on shrooms?

 **Rey** : No

 **Finn** : Then I’d check your friend for signs of a stroke.

 **Rey** : Okay

 **Finn** : Rey did you just have a stroke

 

Rey’s fingers hovered over the digital keyboard. Claw marks raked the floor where Ben had transformed. One shredded leg of his jeans stuck out from behind the couch. It had been real. Completely real.

 

 **Rey** : No, only fucking with you. Happy Halloween!

 **Finn** : ...

 **Finn** : If you don’t text me tomorrow morning, I’m going to assume that you’ve died.

 **Rey** : Thanks, buddy.

 

The phone dimmed and she stared out the window at the pale face of the moon. In the far distance, a wolf’s howl keened in the darkness, lingering and forlorn. Her skin prickled at the sound of it.

A thumb’s touch woke the phone’s screen and her fingers typed out a single word into the search engine:

 _Werewolf_.

It was going to be a long night--she might as well learn something.


	3. Of Understandings, Undressings, and an Unbelievable Amount of Smut

Rey woke to the first glimmer of dawn as it stabbed through the uncovered window. She struggled into a seated position on the couch and rubbed a rough hand across her face. What little sleep she’d found had been neither kind nor substantial. After she’d texted Finn, she’d scarfed cold spaghetti and meatballs (since Rey was loathe to waste any food, especially that which had been made just for her), then Googled until she could Google no more. Or, more accurately, until her phone was nearly out of battery.

Apologies to Finn would come later.

The fire in the stone fireplace had gone out sometime in the night. Rey hadn’t tried to re-light it, since she was sure that the correct response to Ben’s ‘I’m sorry you had to see me turn into a wolf’ would not be ‘Well, I’m sorry I burned down your house.’

A high, muffled whine sounded from outside. Rey leaped to her feet, panic flooding through her veins, and nearly tripped on the fleece blanket she’d wrapped around herself.

Hux sat patiently by the door and stared through the wood. His tail wagged once and stilled.

Another whine. Then a howl, long and pained, and as Rey listened, it garbled and stretched until it became a man’s screaming yell. The yell trailed off into rattling, gulping gasps before falling silent.

The doorknob jiggled and Rey jumped, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Rey?” It was Ben’s voice, muffled by the door. Barely a whisper.

She approached the door slowly.

“Rey, are you there?” he said. She’d never heard him speak like this: embarrassed, terrified.

“Yeah,” she said at last.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.” His voice cracked.

“No, um, it actually explains a lot.” She’d learned quite a bit from her night of Googling, and it had all fallen into place: his scar from the ‘wild dog,’ his position at the animal rescue, the luscious mane of hair on his head (all right, maybe not the last bit, but Rey didn’t write off the idea that something supernatural was at the root of those glistening waves).

“Ah,” Ben said.

A squirrel chattered a high, trilling call off in the woods.

“Could I...uh, could I have a towel? It’s kind of cold out here.”

“Oh, sure, yeah.”

Try as she might, however, Rey couldn’t find a single decently-sized towel. Where in blazes was his linen closet? Why wasn’t there anything in the bathroom but toilet paper and a hand towel? Fine. Whatever. She grabbed the hand towel and went to the door, and when she peeked out of the glass panes, saw that he was standing with his naked back to her, head bent. He turned at the sound of the deadbolt coming undone.

Rey handed him the towel through the cracked door.

“I couldn’t find anything else,” she said as an explanation.

“Thanks,” he said, although it didn’t sound like he meant it. “Could I come in?”

Rey pursed her lips. “Depends. You plan on wolfing out again?”

“No, it--” He let out a distraught sigh. “It only happens at night. During a full moon.”

The door creaked as it opened. She peered at his eyes (as dark and rich as coffee), then let her gaze roam over the rest of him. Mud and scratches covered his skin. Dried leaves nestled in his hair, and a stripe of dirt slanted across the bridge of his nose. She stepped out of the way to let him by. When he passed, her brain finally seemed to realize that he was nearly naked, and her breath caught.

She’d seen glimpses of him when they’d kissed on the couch, and more glimpses as he’d transformed, but she hadn’t been able to stare at him like this: as he stood tall, proud, and magnificent. His shoulders were unbearably wide; his scar traveled down one, and sliced across his perfect pectoral. Slabs of muscle shifted underneath pale skin speckled with moles. Rey nearly gave in to the urge to press her lips to them all, yet there were too many other distractions: the curves and dips of muscle along the top ridge of his hips, the trail of dusky hairs that traveled low on his stomach to sneak underneath the hand towel he held in front of his groin, the strength in the cords of his thick forearms.

It was like he had popped out of a firefighter’s fundraiser calendar (and rolled around in the mud for a bit).

She _should_ be scared, Rey thought in a fleeting sort of way. She should be terrified. Now that it was safe to leave the cabin, she should be sprinting to her car, gunning the engine until it screamed.

Instead, all she could think about was how his large, naked, sweaty body would feel against her own naked, sweaty body as he pushed her deep into the couch cushions. Rey bit her lip as the image flooded her brain and a sweet, tight coil clenched at the apex of her thighs.

Hux gave Ben a series of deep sniffs, then, seemingly convinced, plodded down the front steps and into the realm of beckoning trees and chaseable squirrels.

Ben’s grip shifted on the small towel. It was printed with hens and roosters--the irony of one rooster sitting directly over Ben’s genitals was not lost on Rey--and had fringe all along the ends.

“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he said. His eyes flicked to the open door as if wondering why she wasn’t leaving through it.

“I wasn’t going to risk going outside. To get to my car.”

Ben’s face twisted in pain. He started to say something, then frowned at the fleece that Rey had wrapped around herself. He frowned again at his hand towel.

“You couldn’t get me a blanket?”

Was he really going to chide her about _that?_

“You said towel,” Rey said. “And so that’s what I looked for, and…” She raised a finger and jabbed it in the air in front of his wide, heaving chest. “You’re the one who turned into a fucking _wolf,_ so don’t you dare give me shit about a cock towel.”

Ben had the decency to flush crimson.

“A... _what_ towel?” The flush trickled down to his chest. Rey noticed. She’d been staring at it.

When she realized what she’d said, her own cheeks grew hot. “You’ve got--” Her voice warbled, and she cleared her throat. “You’ve got roosters. On the towel.”

“Oh.” Ben wrestled with a smile in the way that someone would wrestle with an eel.

He shifted, and a chunk of mud fell from his arm to the floor.

“I need to shower,” he said, glaring at the mud.

“I’ll be here.” Rey shuffled to the couch and plopped onto it.

“Why?” If his frown got any deeper, it would fall off his chin.

“Because I want to hear what you have to say.”

Ben struggled with words for a moment, then closed the front door and padded barefoot to the bathroom. It was a quick shower, thankfully, since Rey could hardly sit still; images of soap lathering over firm, smooth skin kept popping into her imagination.

He emerged, ruffling a hand through his damp hair. He’d put on a pair of jeans that slung low on his hips, and hadn’t bothered with anything else. Rey tried not to stare. She failed.

Ben heaved a sigh and crossed his arms over the broad expanse of his bare chest.

“What do you want to know?” he said.

“Everything.”

Another sigh. “I was bitten when I was twenty. Every full moon since, I turn into a wolf.”

Rey waited for more, but it didn’t come.

“That’s it?”

“You said you wanted to know everything. That’s everything.” Ben pointed at his scar. “Bitten.” He made a broad gesture to the spot on the living room floor where he’d transformed. “Wolf. I’m not sure what I’m leaving out, here.”

Rey spluttered and threw the blanket off. “I mean, is there a cure? Will you be like this forever? Do you know who turned you?” The questions erupted from her without leaving any time for Ben to answer. “Do you have any powers from it?”

Ben’s closed mouth worked. “Do you have a preference which one I answer first?”

She sat back, chastised. “No.”

He chewed on his cheek and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know if there’s a cure. So I assume I’ll be like this forever. I think my sense of smell has become better. That’s it, though.”

“Smell? Really? Like, ‘Pardon me, friend, but you ate garlic six days ago’?”

Ben’s eyes narrowed at her. “Like, you washed your hair with apple-cardamom shampoo yesterday.” His head tipped up as his nostrils flared ever so slightly. “There’s a spot of grease on your skin somewhere. And you used my toothpaste.”

 _Damn_. The thought that he could smell her made every inch of her skin hum like it was about to spark. She rose from the couch. Ben turned to glare at the cold fireplace.

“I don’t know who bit me. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.”

“How did it happen? And if you just say ‘wolf’ and ‘bite’ again, I’m going to throw something at you.”

He blinked at the intensity of her threat, then shrugged. “I was walking alone in the woods, late at night, and got attacked. An approaching car scared it off. And now I howl. And can smell your shampoo.”

He spoke with so little emotion that Rey wondered how many times he had cursed himself; how many late nights had been spent wrapped in hatred of that unknown wolf.

“So, does this mean that everything else is true?” The question had been nipping at her heels since she’d turned to Google the previous night.

Ben’s brows furrowed. “‘Everything else’?”

“Vampires, zombies, demons…”

Rey started at his caustic snort. “Hell if I know,” he said. “I haven’t exactly stumbled into any Mythical Beings Anonymous groups.” He paused, then looked at her sideways. “You’re strangely accepting about all of this.”

“Hey,” Rey scoffed. “Once you’ve had to watch half a dozen inebriated, middle-aged men do an interpretive strip-tease to ‘Watch Me Nae Nae’ on the wing of a plane, not a lot can permanently phase you.”

Ben’s features twisted in concentration, as if he was trying to picture what Rey had described, and then his mouth dipped into a deep, disturbed scowl, as if he had succeeded.

“That’s why you live all the way out here?” Rey said in an attempt to draw Ben’s mind from the horrific mental image. “Keep away from people? Only eat the occasional chicken?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, his voice suddenly tight.

“So not because you like feeling adrift in the universe.”

He gave her a curious look, as if surprised she’d remembered. “I meant that.”

“Ah.”

“But, sure, it wasn’t the main reason.” Ben started pacing. “I do everything I can to stay calm. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t drink caffeine. I go to yoga every single fucking day. I meditate. I burn” --he gestured harshly to a stack of dried green bundles by the door-- “fucking _...sage._ Because if I’m not calm, if I’m not in control, then I feel it.”

Rey took a tentative step towards him. “Feel what?”

Ben dragged both hands through his hair then brought them down to his stomach, right under his ribcage. He dug his fingers into the skin. “The animal,” he said bitterly. “It’s always there, but when I’m angry, or scared, or…” He looked at Rey and swallowed. The tips of his ears tinged pink through the wavy locks of damp hair. “Or when I’m aroused. Then I feel it rise up.”

Ah. That explained the eye thing.

Rey didn’t realize she had spoken out loud until Ben said, “What eye thing?”

She waved her fingers at her own. “Your eyes turn gold, sometimes.”

Ben looked as if she had just told him that the whole arm would have to come off.

“What?” he said, aghast.

Holding up her palms in pacification, Rey came closer to him. “It’s not bad, it’s actually kind of h--”

She broke off at the tortured expression on Ben’s face. _It’s actually kind of hot,_ she finished in her head. He started to pace again in long, brutal strides.

“Feeling the wolf doesn’t make you turn into the wolf, right?” Rey said.

Ben’s pacing faltered. “Well, no, but--”

“Have you ever gotten so angry that you’ve wolfed out in the middle of a slow Starbucks line?”

His feet stilled. “No, but--”

Rey put her hands on her hips. “I don’t see why you’re so worried.”

Ben spun around to face her. “How are you _not_ worried?” he snapped.

“Why are you getting so angry?”

“Because I’m crazy about you!”

A hive of warm, fuzzy bees swarmed around inside Rey’s head. “You know, that might actually be sweet if you weren’t _yelling it!”_

He groaned in frustration through clenched teeth. If he ruffled his hair any harder, he was probably going to start pulling it out.

“I really like you,” Ben said. Sweet words said as if they were a curse. “I like spending time with you. You’re kind, and smart, and hearing you talk about planes makes me feel more than I’ve ever…” His jaw clenched. “And I would never be able to live with myself if you became scared of me. If I hur--”

Ben broke off and started to pace once more, his large hand scrubbing his face. He shot her a look of desperation, as if he were pleading with her. For what, though, she had no idea.

“Rey,” he said, facing her at last. “I’m a monster.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he went on.

“I could have hurt you last night.” He came towards her slowly, as if expecting her to turn and flee.

“But you didn’t.”

Ben wanted to argue with her, she could tell. She silenced him with a fierce glare usually reserved for belligerent mechanics.

“I--” Ben surprised her then by dropping to his knees. His head pressed against her stomach and she brought her hands to his head as those great, powerful arms came up to the backs of her thighs. She felt him take a long, heavy breath. The damp curls of his hair were soft between her fingers.

“I could have killed you,” he mumbled against her. Tipping his head backwards, his eyes met hers. “I could have bitten you.” Under her palms, he shook his head roughly. “I don’t know why you stayed.”

“Probably because I’m crazy about you, too.”

The poor man seemed confused, and Rey shrugged.

“Hey,” she said, “several days out of the month I’m not much fun to be around, either.”

A flash of a smile, then his forehead flopped onto her stomach.

“I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.”

Rey could feel his breath heating her skin through the fabric of her hoodie. He was awfully close to her crotch. The coil in her belly--the one that had been tightening since she’d watched his naked, magnificent covered-in-mud body walk into the cabin--creaked and strained. Her pulse quickened. Ben must have known, somehow.

He sucked in a sharp breath against her and his broad palms slid up, scraping against the maddeningly thick layers of her pants. Lust throbbed through her limbs and settled heavily in her cunt. The thought crossed her mind that he might be able to smell her arousal. Why did the very idea heat her up even more?

Ben’s words were partially muffled by her shirt, but she could feel the vibrations of them. “You have no idea how much I…” He trailed off.

“How much you what?”

He looked up at her again. His irises were rapidly lightening. They were a tawny brown now, glimmering like toffee. At least this time, she knew what it meant. Pleasure unfurled within chest to see that she was affecting him in the same way he was affecting her. It wasn’t too tricky to figure out how he meant to finish his sentence.

Rey stroked the edge of his sharp jaw.

“I’m not glass,” she said softly. “You won’t break me.”

Ben swallowed. She felt his Adam’s apple bob against her stomach. His lips parted and a different sort of hunger settled in his gaze. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

Her laugh was more of a gasp. “Ben, I’ve wanted you to fuck me since you introduced yourself.”

He growled then, low and rumbling. It was a growl of victory, a possessive claim. He shoved up the hem of her hoodie with savage jerks and planted his mouth against her exposed stomach--sucking, licking, nibbling. Rey cried out as his fingers gripped her ass and he pulled her even closer. One hand trailed along the inside of her thigh, higher, harder, until he was palming her pussy through her Carhartts. Rey rocked against him and gripped his head for balance, the exquisite pressure threatening to overwhelm her.

Ben fumbled with the button on her pants. It was a stubborn button--the hole was slightly too small for the fastener (and yes, Rey knew there was innuendo in there), and it had always needed some cajoling to be undone.

But Ben didn’t want to cajole. With a snarl, he grabbed each side of the waistband and _ripped._

Rey didn’t like those Carhartts that much anyway.

He yanked them down her thighs, almost whimpering when he saw the tiny scrap of lace that served as her underwear. His eyes flicked up to her, pupils blown wide, and he tugged briefly at the hem of her hoodie.

“Take this off,” he ordered in a grating rumble.

Oh, that voice.

She wanted him to read something smutty to her. She wanted to hear how that voice--rich as sin and deeper than hell--sounded around words like ‘cock,’ and ‘pussy,’ and ‘scream.’

Rey squirmed out of her top and threw it halfway across the room. And then there she was, clothed only in tiny pieces of black lace, a man kneeling at her feet who stared at her body as if he wanted nothing more than to devour every inch.

His mouth closed over her pussy through her underwear and Rey mewled at the contact. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted him on her skin, wanted to feel the soft, wet pressure of his tongue against her clit and the press of his plump lips against _her_ lips; it was all muted and dimmed through the fabric.

The haste in which Ben pulled her underwear off seemed to imply that he felt the same. She stepped out of the stretched scrap and then his mouth was on her bare flesh, dragging his tongue along her thigh, then higher, higher, until he was sucking and lapping at her aching, soaked skin.

It didn’t seem like there was enough air in the cabin to fill Rey’s lungs. Her breath came in as little pants and emerged as cracking moans. He was looking up over the curve of her belly, watching her, tracing her thighs with his fingertips as he sucked her clit past his lips in firm pulls.

Rey gripped Ben’s head as if it was the only thing holding her upright, and when he maneuvered one of her legs over his shoulder, she gripped even tighter. He slipped his tongue into her and she squeaked out a trembling cry. Her heartbeat sang in her ears and sweat prickled at her forehead. It was so good. _Ben_ was so good.

It was...well, it was _too_ good, actually. Her legs wobbled precariously.

“Ben, I...I’m--shit!”

Her leg buckled right as he stroked her with the tip of a large finger. Before she fell, Ben caught her hips, then lay on his back on the wooden floor and directed her pussy straight to his waiting mouth.

_Oh._

Years ago, Rey had been temporarily stationed with an aerial firefighting plane. She had joined the crew once for a flight over a wildfire, and that day, the wind had been so strong within the blaze that it had generated a fire tornado. From a thousand feet, she had watched as the flames swirled into a churning, chaotic column. Scorching, blinding, and uncontrolled.

That was how she felt now, to have Ben’s mouth working her cunt. She was being consumed by flames. They danced over her skin and roared against her skull, driving her onward, and up, and up, and up, through the smoke and into the clearest of skies.

She was almost there. Almost. The sound of his sucking was an obscene duet with her own raucous moans.

And then…

Rey had told Ben that she wasn’t glass, that she wasn’t going to break. She might have been lying. As her orgasm blasted through her body, it felt as though she was shattering; as though the consuming fire had frozen and splintered into glimmering shards that wheeled through the cosmos.

The continued flicker of his tongue against her clit was too much. Every movement sent shocks through her limbs, and her legs spasmed. Rey tried to lift her hips, but Ben’s hands on her thighs kept her tight against his mouth. Somehow, even though she pinned him against the ground, she was the one feeling ravished.

He didn’t stop, didn’t slow, and when she met his determined gaze over the mound of her cunt, he let out a rumbling groan that shot up through her spine. Then, like a fucking miracle, the tingle in her toes returned. It surged like an explosion up her body and out through the top of her head.

Rey flopped sideways onto the floor and dragged the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. She felt sticky and exhausted. The ceiling went out of focus and didn’t seem to want to clear up anytime soon.

“Oh, _Ben,”_ she said around gulping breaths when she could speak again.

He crawled to her, leaned on one elbow above where she lay. Smears of herself glistened on his lips, on his chin: the shining evidence of the pleasure he’d mercilessly wrung out of her.

“Was that all right?” he asked, as if he genuinely hadn’t been sure.

Rey couldn’t nod fast enough. She didn’t know that she’d ever come so hard that she’d likened herself to sharp pieces of glass twirling about in space. Which, now that she thought on it, sounded very dangerous and not at all like a sexy time.

A relieved sigh left Ben and he gave her a smile that, had she not actually seen a wolf last night, she would describe as ‘wolfish.’ This smile wasn’t sharp and terrifying, but hungry, cunning, and more than a little wicked.

“Glad you liked it,” he said. His wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. Fingers danced along his lips and he licked her off of his skin, then closed his eyes and groaned. “You’re delicious. I could eat your pussy for days.”

As much as she’d thought about how good Ben would be at talking dirty, Rey had never expected _this._ She’d never before felt as if words could grasp her skin and surge inside, and Rey arched her back and gasped as if he’d touched her.

Ben tilted his head, curious. “Do you like when I talk to you like that?”

“Yes,” Rey moaned.

He smiled again and trailed his fingertips up the inside of her thigh, the light touch making her jerk as if shocked. “Should I keep going?”

Rey wasn’t sure if he was talking about the direction in which his hand was headed or his deep, rumbling words, but she nodded frantically, because the answer to both subjects was a resounding ‘yes.’

His jeans were still on. Hold on, now. That couldn’t be right.

Rey reached for the button in a valiant attempt to rectify the clothing imbalance, yet right as she closed the waistband in her grip, his fingers brushed against her soaked entrance and all thoughts of Ben’s pants flew from her mind like startled birds.

Her hands scrabbled at his chest and she bucked into him as he eased one thick digit inside her.

Ben groaned like a man tortured. “Fuck,” he gasped. “You feel…” His sentence dissolved when his finger began to thrust in a slow, tormenting rhythm.

“I want to…” He trailed off again, groaning again as he stroked her inner wall. “You’re…”

“Ben, dirty talk tends to work better if you finish your sentences.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right.” He paused for a moment, toffee eyes roaming over her face, his free hand sifting through her mussed hair, before pushing a second finger into her drenched pussy.

 _Fuck,_ he was large. Those two fingers filled her, stretched her, brushed against parts still zinging from her orgasm. She rolled against his torso and buried her face in the curve of his neck. He smelled like sweat, and sex, and peppermint soap.

“I’ve thought about you a lot, Rey,” he rumbled into her ear, close enough for his breath to dance along her skin.

“Yeah?” she squeaked. His fingers were moving faster, gliding in and out and sending pulses of pleasure through her belly. “What dooyuh…” She gulped in a breath against his quickening pace. “What do you think about?”

“I thought a lot about how you would taste.” He glanced down to where his hand moved against her trimmed curls (because, okay, Rey had been feeling pretty optimistic about where the truck repair would end). “I thought about how your tight, hot pussy would feel as it clenched around me.”

Rey tried to say, “Oh, God, yes,” but it came out as, “Ohguhhdyis.”

_Keep talking. Say ‘pussy’ again. Please, please._

“I thought about how you would sweat and tremble and scream as you came on my mouth.”

Hell, she wanted to lose herself inside of his voice and never emerge.

“I thought about how wet you would get for me.” He was staring at where he thrust into her, and his voice took on a tone of wonder. “I had _no fucking idea._ I want to lick it all from your skin.” His already deep voice dropped an octave. “Want to drink you up.”

Well, _that_ exact phrase said in his rumbling baritone was going to live in her memories forever, no doubt about it.

“I need you naked and in me,” Rey said frantically, desperately. She’d never been a patient person, and this situation had exhausted every pathetic scrap of her self-control. She fumbled with the button his jeans while he fumbled one-handed with the clasp on her bra. When he swore in frustration, she knew he was getting close to tearing another piece of her clothing, and while the Carhartts had been old and about to rip anyway, she liked this bra too much to have it shredded by an impatient, aroused werewolf.

That right there was one phrase she’d never be able to laugh over with Finn, she thought as she reached around and unfastened the hooks herself. Maybe she’d start an anonymous blog so she could share thoughts like that. She could even give it some awful title, like ‘A Hard Bone to Swallow,’ or ‘He Made Me Howl.’

Any more puns were pushed to the sidelines when Rey discovered that Ben had foregone underwear. As his jeans flew across the room, Rey reached down to touch the veined, flushed length of his cock. A shining bead of precum glimmered at its broad head. Her mouth watered as she imagined tracing each vein with her tongue. Before her fingers could even brush against it, he positioned himself between her legs and pinned her hands by her shoulders.

“You’ll be the end of me if you do that,” he said.

Rey whimpered in frustration.

How would he feel against her palms? What noises would he make as she stroked him? How did he like to be touched? These were important questions, and they had plagued her since she’d first seen him in loose yoga pants. These questions demanded answers.

Ben’s mouth drifted open as he stared down at her tits, at her face, at the way her body was stretched out beneath him.

All right, maybe the questions could wait a bit.

Rey opened her legs wide to him. He kept staring.

“Ben,” she whined and canted her hips up in anticipation. “Please.”

He blinked as if dazed, then his expression hardened. His breath stuttered. Those amber eyes flickered to a blazing gold.

It didn’t seem fair, really, how easy it was for Ben to scoop her up and carry her to the plush pile rug in front of the empty fireplace. She lay cradled in the cage of his enormous arms, wishing that life worked in such a way that you could request a preferred method of locomotion, in which case she would always choose to be carried by Ben. (Most people would undoubtedly choose flying, because that was the obvious choice for people without an imagination or a Ben.)

He lay her on the rug, then flipped her over to her stomach. His chest was warm against her back.

“I can hear the animal, Rey.” His voice had changed. It was still low, still deep, still rumbling. There was a darker thread through it though--one that spoke of hunger, lust, and insatiable _need._

A flicker of alarm pricked at the base of her spine. “What’s it saying?”

His tongue darted along her earlobe and his teeth nipped at it.

“It wants to get you on your knees, mount you from behind. It wants to plow you into the carpet and rut you so hard that you feel it in your sleep.”

 _“Oh,”_ she exhaled. The alarm vanished as quickly as it had come, splintering into a crackling wave of desire. “You should probably listen to it.”

She squeaked as he forcefully drew her hips off the rug and rubbed his cock against her cunt, coating them both for much longer than necessary. She pushed herself backwards, trying to strongly hint that slathering himself was nice and all, but not exactly what he’d described. And she wanted what he’d described. Oh, so badly.

And then, blessed relief, Ben eased inside. Scalding pleasure raced from her toes to her ears as he sank into her. Rey moaned into the carpet, guttural and wanton, her fingers digging into the fibers as if they could anchor her to reality.

Ben moved slowly, at first, as she adjusted around him, then harder. Faster. He splayed his large hand between her shoulder blades and pressed her into the carpet, pinning her as he made true to his earlier words.

Wasn’t this a phrase? Tits down, ass up? Maybe. Rey was having trouble thinking. Her body didn’t feel like her body anymore; she was a writhing mass of singing nerve endings, thundering heartbeats, and dripping (yes, actually fucking _dripping)_ bodily fluids. All she could hear was the rhythmic slap of his thighs against her ass and the soft, sucking sounds as she took him deeper than she’d thought possible.

One of his mighty arms wrapped under her stomach and pulled her so she was pressed against his chest. He grabbed her hand and brought it to where they were joined.

“Touch yourself,” he rasped against her neck. “Make yourself come around me.”

Fine, but only because he asked so nicely.

It wasn’t easy to rub herself while he bucked into her like a man possessed, but she put forth a solid effort. Her clit kept slipping underneath her shaking fingers. The fizzing warmth of orgasm lurked close by and wriggled against her skin.

Ben nibbled on her shoulder. “Are you gonna come for me?”

Rey whimpered.

“Do it. Make that sweet pussy cream all over my cock.”

_What._

How could someone’s voice sound like sex? Was that even a thing? Would it be wrong if she recorded it? Would it be wrong if she recorded it with intent to use it as a masturbatory supplement?

His teeth scraped her skin and the fizzing warmth swirled higher in her chest.

“Are you gonna come for me, like a good girl, with my cock stuffed deep inside you?”

_WHAT._

The rest of Rey’s thoughts were gibberish as the fizzing warmth swarmed up to her head and roared through her body. His name ripped out of her throat in a sobbing scream as she flew apart.

It took a moment for Rey to realize that Ben was talking again: not in the controlled, demanding tone of the animal, but the stammering, breathless tone of Ben. She could only make out ‘please,’ ‘cum,’ and ‘in you,’ and made an educated guess on what he was trying to say.

“Do it,” she cried. “Oh, do it.”

His teeth clamped down on the skin between her shoulder and her neck, pinning her in place as he pumped wildly into her. It should have hurt, and she was sure there would be a welt there later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, since her senses were overwhelmed by so much else: the stretch of her cunt around his thick, hard cock; the glide of his sweaty, slippery skin against her back; the dark, woodsy scent of him filling her nose.

Each thrust became more jerky than the one before until, with a growling curse, he shuddered to a stop as the searing heat of his cum filled her.

They collapsed to the rug together, panting and staring at the ceiling. It still wasn’t in focus, Rey noticed.

“Fuck,” Ben muttered. “I’m sorry. That was really fast.”

“Are you...are you _serious?_ Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m going to smack you if you think you need to apologize for any of that.” Her head spun and his words sounded muffled through the ringing in her ears.

“It’s just been, um, a...while.”

Rey lifted an eyebrow, urging him on.

A grumble of surrender. “I haven’t…” He pinched his lips and squinted. “After I was bitten, I didn’t exactly invite people over for intimate encounters.”

“Wait.” Rey struggled to her elbows and gaped down at him. “Hold on. Since you were bitten? You haven’t had sex in _ten years?”_

Ben grimaced. “No?”

“Fuck,” Rey breathed, sagging into the rug.

“Yeah. So it was faster than I’d have liked.” He rolled to his side and trailed his fingers across her stomach, over the bottom swell of a breast. A heavy sigh left him. “I was hoping to pay more attention to these.”

Rey gave him her most serious look. “It’s not too late, Ben.”

He nodded gravely. “I think you’re right.”

After the most mind-blowing sex that she’d had in...well, _ever,_ Rey didn’t expect her body to be up to much of anything besides sleep and ingesting fatty, chocolatey foods. She was wrong.

His touch made every nerve leap to attention and plead for more. He cupped her breasts, stroked them, trailed delicate lips over their curves, and soon she was arching into him and thrusting her nipples towards his mouth like they were the offering to a deity. Ben accepted her offering with enthusiasm. Or, at least, he accepted as much as he could fit into his mouth.

Then Ben was on top of her, strong thighs between hers, lips closed around her pebbled nipple, his groans blending with her own. He trailed a line of open-mouthed caresses up her neck until he reached her lips.

Her fingers tangled in his soft hair as he kissed her thoroughly. If she could spend an eternity locked against him like this--his tongue moving languorously against hers, his weight settling across her hips, silky chunks of his hair tickling her cheeks, those phenomenal hands roaming with abandon--it wouldn’t be long enough.

A slight shift of his leg, and Rey let out a surprised yelp as the stiff head of his cock prodded at her thigh.

“Already?” she gasped. It can’t have been more than a few minutes since he’d orgasmed; his cum was still slowly trickling out of her.

Ben rumbled a laugh against her neck. “It’s been a while.”

“Come on then, you’ve a lot of time to make up.”

“Only if you want to,” he said, his expression so genuine and sweet that she wanted to roll him to his back and have her be the one to mount him, but in all honesty, she didn’t think she could move him if she tried.

So instead, she reached down and guided his cock into her. They groaned together, against each other’s skin, and Rey wrapped herself around him, heels digging into that lovely ass, hands tangling in his hair and scrabbling at his back.

Like this, with him moving above her, she became aware of the sheer size of the man. If they were outside, he would block out the sun.

Ben grabbed her thigh and shifted it higher, opening her wider to his slow thrusts. Crying gasps burst from her lips: lewd little things that heated her own blood as surely as they heated Ben’s.

She could feel him holding back. She felt it in the tremble of his forearms, the shake of his thighs; she could see it in the gritting of his teeth. For some reason, he was still trying to be gentle with her.

_You won’t break me._

“Let go, Ben,” she whispered.

The tension burst from him in a choking gasp. He swept her into his arms, and then he was walking across the living room with her clinging to him, arms and legs wrapped around his torso, her ass resting on his forearms.

Locomotion à la Ben.

“Never put me down,” Rey murmured against his neck.

“What?” he said as her back met the wall.

The air left her in a rush. “N-nothing.”

He fucked her like that for a bit, pinning her to the wall with each driving thrust, nibbling on her shoulders and whispering words that made her toes curl and her brain short-circuit. It didn’t seem to be enough for the animal, though.

When he set her down, Rey’s disappointed peep turned into a delighted “Oop!” as he spun her around, bent her over, and surged right back inside. Her hands splayed against the plaster, bracing herself against him.

He was letting go, all right.

Whenever she had heard deep fucking described as ‘feeling it in my throat,’ she’d always laughed. Because it had sounded ridiculous. Had those people any knowledge of anatomy?

Now, she was coming to the realization that they might have had a point. It was like his cock was hitting some spot inside of her that led directly to the roof of her mouth; she could feel him in her cunt, in her belly, in her chest, in her throat.

He’d fucked her farther forward so that her breasts slid over the smooth plaster. It wasn’t entirely accurate to say that he was fucking her into the wall, since it felt more like he was fucking her into the next century.

“What do you want, Rey?” he rasped into her ear: the rumbling, seductive drawl of the animal.

Words burst from her without a filter. “I want your cock in my mouth.”

A cough, and then a very Ben-like ‘Fu-u-ck.’

The moment he pulled out, she sunk to her knees in front of him and dragged her tongue up the slippery length of him, licking their combined fluids from his taut skin, feeling drunk from the taste. He slid into her mouth easily.

High, desperate groans sounded above her. Thick fingers twined in her hair, pulling just enough to send shivers down her spine.

“I...I’m going to...you’re going to make me cum.”

Rey moaned around him, muffled and low. Her tongue curled against the head. One hand wrapped around the base of him and stroked as she sucked.

“I want to spill it all down your throat. W-will you let me?”

She pulled him deeper in response.

The words he said might have been English at some point, but they didn’t bear any resemblance to actual language. He pushed into her with a shout and an uncontrolled spasm of his hips, and when his cum shot to the back of her throat, she drank it down greedily. He jerked again when she circled her tongue around the head, and he pulled out of her with a string of gasping curses.

Rey wiped a stripe of his cum from her chin. She could still feel the warmth of it between her legs, dribbling from her cunt. Never had she felt so utterly fucked and filled. She was delirious from it, as high as a 787 at cruising altitude.  

Ben dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, then fell backwards so she lay sprawled on top of him. Underneath her cheek, his heart hammered a soothing rhythm.

“You’re probably never going to set up your mat next to mine, after this,” Rey said at last.

“Oh, hell no.”

She gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, and dragged the tip of her tongue along the pectoral portion of his scar. “Even in my cute, fancy leggings?”

Ben rumbled a laugh that Rey could feel down to her toes. “Want to hear a secret?”

“What?”

His eyes, dark and warm as coffee, drifted to lock with hers. One cheek dimpled in a smirk, and he swung his palm against her ass in a light smack. “I was a pretty big fan of ‘Toight’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this has been a flipping blast.  
> Thanks for reading this, all you werewolf-smut lovers, and a HUGE thanks to AKnightofWren for the awesome prompt.


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